Silver Flash
by dmitric300
Summary: What would happen if Mizuki tried to kill Naruto when he convinced him to steal the scroll of seals? How will a new team, new villains, and a rather new look affect our young hero? [naruhina] [pre timeskip]


**Silver Flash**

**Author: **Dmitri A. Chouchkov

**Editor: **seraphos1

**Language: **Canadian English

"Speech"

'Thought'

"**Kyuubi speech"**

'**Kyuubi thought'**

(Clarification, fun fact or translation from Japanese)

**Pairing(s): **Naruhina, NaruIno maybe

**Author's opening statement:**

I understand that this chapter follows the main story arc very closely but I assure you that the plot will wildly digress once Naruto gets the scroll of sealing (I'll even explain how he does it). I probably can't ask you of this but please read to the end of this chapter before making your decision whether you like it or not, you can probably just skip the first part altogether since it really is only a recap and an example of my writing style. Don't worry; you won't have to endure an instant romance, another wave country and chuunin exam arc and certainly not some kind of super genius over powered Naruto. In fact he will probably be considerably underpowered. P.S. this fic will not contain ANY yaohi (not even the narusasu kiss, all though I may poke some fun at Orochimaru and his young boy obsession) and any Yuri that may appear will only be used as a joke (no one in Naruto swings that way anyways). You can use CTRL+F to search out descriptions for jutsus and random terms at the end of the chapter.

**Chapter 1: shiiru wo funsai seishin**

The blonde boy awoke with a start; the sunlight seeped into his apartment window and slowly pulled him out of his fading dreams. Rubbing the sleep out of his drowsy blue eyes, he glanced over at his alarm clock sitting amongst a dishevelled mess of discarded ramen cups, stray kunai and stray orange garments (despite popular belief, he does in fact have more than one change of clothes).

"Oh crap I'm late!" came the boy's exclamation as he hurried to put water to boil while trying to put on a pair of pants at the same time. Pouring the hot water into one of the many ramen cups that lined the insides of his cabinet, he muttered an "itadakimasu" to no one in particular, split his chopsticks and downed the entire concoction so fast it rivalled the best efforts of the Akimichi clan.

Finally placing a set of old goggles to complete his attire; Naruto pushed open the window and disappeared into the Konoha streets. He would have used the door but he was late and he never knew what kind of jutsu would be placed on it by the angry townspeople, one time a particular nasty one temporarily confused his nerves so that his legs would move when he tried to move his arms and vice versa. Suffice to say he had been tricked so many times that he knew to stay cautious, a ninja can never be too cautious, and this went doubly so for the often beleaguered Naruto.

Naruto ran across town jumping from rooftop to rooftop trying to avoid the angry glares of the villagers down below. He had no idea why he was hated, or why most of the students looked down on him. Sure he wasn't very talented but neither was Shikamaru and he was still respected a lot more than Naruto. Everything from purchasing food to getting textbooks became a near impossible task since most store clerks would throw him out muttering something along the lines of "demon spawn". Sometimes they would use even more colourful language, albeit beyond his 12 year old mind to comprehend. He never particularly understood why he was hated, or why the children despised him. The kicker was that everyone seemed to love Sasuke-teme (bastard) even though he was moody and unsociable.

Naruto couldn't stand being ignored, so he turned to many kinds of juvenile attention-seeking behaviour. He would wear his bright 'kill me now' orange blazer and pants, smile incessantly, and of course pull as many practical jokes as possible. Spending most of his time playing practical jokes, like painting the hokage's faces or digging pit falls in commonly used areas quickly set him behind on his studies and he seriously needed the time. For one thing he was almost completely incapable of creating a bunshin. Regular bunshin were weak holograms that should be visually identical to the user and confuse an opponent in battle. _His _on the other hand, either didn't appear, or appeared completely disfigured and subsequently exploded, much to the amusement of his peers and disapproval of his teacher, Iruka-sensei.

Since creating 3 bunshin was the final test to become a genin (low level ninja), this was the reason that he hadn't passed the test three years straight. If he failed once more he would be expelled form the academy and be forced to spend the rest of his life as a citizen. Naruto cringed at the thought. If he didn't become a genin he would never realize his dream of become hokage – the strongest and most respected ninja in the village. Even though Naruto declared time and time again that he would become hokage, much to the displeasure of his peers; his true goal, whether he knew it or not, was to be respected and hopefully befriended by the rest of the ninja community.

Naruto arrived at the academy just before the bell rang, and absentmindedly took a seat beside Sasuke. He was too late to realize his mistake as he looked over to Sakura-chan (familiar honorific, for girls) and Ino who both stared at him with fire in their eyes before shrieking in unison "How dare you sit next to my Sasuke-kun!" (Familiar honorific, for guys) subsequently delivering two powerful punches to his forehead. He slumped over, happily welcoming the temporary unconsciousness that would drown out the girls' fangirl bickering for at least a minute.

He soon regained conciousness, slumped over at a desk beside Hinata and Shikamaru. He sat up putting a hand behind his neck and gave a sheepish hi, to his two classmates. Shikamaru glanced up from his dream but decided that engaging in conversation would be too troublesome, so he contented himself with lying his head back down. Hinata on the other hand began to blush quite red as she muttered "H-hello, Na-Naruto-kun" and quickly averted her eyes before her blush became too apparent.

'Even Hinata won't look at me' thought Naruto as he sadly looked back down at his desk, he really was too thick headed to realize that Hinata was completely infatuated with him, but thinking never really had been one of his strong points. Naruto preferred to act first and think later, and was better at it than most but he still really lacked the strategy and forethought to challenge a ninja with half a brain, luckily the standards in a number of other countries were horrendously low, and if he was good at one thing it was creating chaos.

"Quiet down class" stated Iruka, when the class quieted down to his satisfaction he continued, 'I hate having to yell' he thought. "Today is the day of the final exams and hopefully _some _of you-" he gave a stern glance to Naruto "have improved to the point where you can finally join the ninja community of Konohagakure no Sato (village hidden in the leaves.) Everyone please line up in front of either me or Mizuki-sensei; you will be required to create 3 acceptable bunshin and hold them for 30 seconds. Remember that you must get 75 over all but you cannot fail any of the tests including the written, the accuracy and finally, the one on one duel. Upon completion you can receive your hitai-ate (forehead protector) and further instructions will be given to you." A murmer went through the class while the more nervous students began to sweat, Shikamaru only raised an eyebrow, the world could have been ending and his response wouldn't have been any different.

Everyone subsequently formed two equal lines, more specifically a line with Sasuke and his rabid legion of clingy fan girls and line with everyone else. One by one the lines got shorter as the ninja hopefuls took their first test, some of them passed, some failed, and one even broke out into tears and ran out of the room before the instructor had time to even speak.

"Yes I did it! Hahaha, no one can beat Kiba" exclaimed the Inuzuka arrogantly inciting a few groans from the students still in line, even his dog Akamaru only sighed at his master's antics. 'And he's supposed to be my master?' the dog thought incredulously as Mizuki cut of the dog boy with a rather bored "Next".

Naruto was sweating bullets at this point. Even despite his severe training he could never get the basic jutsu down. He could do kawarimi (replacement) and even made his own variant of the henge technique but he could never make a Bunshin. Every time he tried he ended up with only ghostly corpses instead of any actual clones. He however had not come unprepared. The night before he had sneaked into the library and borrowed a book about chakra (normally he would be kicked out on site). Inside he learned that bunshin, which was in fact an extremely weak genjutsu, required only a small amount of chakra, while he tended to pump so much into it that it was physically visible. It was true that some techniques relied on raw power alone but others required a certain finesse and he was intent on figuring out a methodology he could use. However during his practise session he realized that stemming the flow of his chakra was like trying to plug a hole in a dam with a cork, it just couldn't be done. He then realized that he had to spend all of that chakra somehow so there was only one solution: hold back as much as possible and try and divide that chakra as much as possible or to put it simply: make a roomful of clones.

Mizuki was getting nervous even if his impassive face showed no signs. In order for his plan to work he needed Naruto to fail, and that glint he saw in Naruto's eyes unnerved him. He wasn't going to let him pass, even if he had to do a little sabotage. Just as Naruto produced formed the necessary seals for his technique, Mizuki had already formed a seal of his own beneath the desk and muttered the single world "Kai". Such a weak genjutsu was no mach for a dispelling technique performed by a low level chuunin and the only thing remaining after the smoke had settled was as confused Naruto and class full of children, all pointing and laughing at the disgraced boy.

"I'm sorry Naruto but you were unable to produce even a single bunshin, I am afraid that I must fail you" said Mizuki with practised sincerity. Inside however he was smirking at the demon brat, he would soon have his revenge on the demon fox incarnation and he would have it soon. He knew the boy was crushed, and one with no hopes clings to anything that may come their way; Mizuki was certain that he would 'be there' for Naruto. He even had the perfect scheme; Naruto would die a horrible death and Mizuki would have the scroll of forbidden seals. An artefact he could to sell to Kumagaruke no Sato (hidden cloud village) for an excellent price. If the response to Naruto's death is favourable enough among the general populace then he could even take credit for his doings and further his own ambitions. Just like the Yondaime (4th hokage) Mizuki would be known as the one who defeated the second coming of the Kyuubi.

Naruto for the first time in months dropped his grin and cried. There were some things that he could handle. He could handle having to live alone and on allowance from the hokage. He could even handle not having any friends, even though his stomach seemed to wrench when he saw the other kids laughing together while he sat on a swing, hidden in the shadows. He could even handle never knowing the love of a parent; it was difficult to miss something he never had. This however was different. This was his dream, and now it was shattered, and it stung knowing that he would never amount to anything, that he could never be like the Yondaime Hokage, who he so admired. The Yondaime had died to protect the entire village; he on the other hand would probably die alone in his apartment. The saddest thing was that most of the villagers would be happy, they had always hated him, and his death would probably end up as a holiday.

As Hinata watched Naruto's slumped form shamble out of the room she had to do everything she could to restrain herself from running after him and hugging him… professing to him that she loved him… but she felt herself too weak. Everyday her father had grilled it into her head that she was a weakling, a disgrace to the great Hyuuga clan and it was a shame that she was born before her sister Hanabi who would have made a better heir. After three years of such torture she began to believe every word he said and they hurt. Hinata had lost all confidence in herself, all confidence in her abilities. She could barely utter a word to Naruto, let alone confess her deepest feelings and even if by some miracle she was granted that inner strength, her father would surely disown her for associating with 'that delinquent' as her father had come to call him.

Hinata could never see why her father hated the boy that much. Sure he performed a couple of pranks every now and again but they certainly weren't dangerous to anybody. The worst he had ever done was desecrate the hokage monument (how he did it she never knew since there were chuunin guards there to stop anyone from trying anything, and the stone faces were practically vertical). He had never hurt anyone, and yet the village was hell bent on revenge as if he had killed their families. To her, Naruto was strong. Despite everything that had happened, all the mistreatment, all the criticizing, he got by with a smile on his face and a gleam in his eyes. He had an infinite source of determination and she had none. She wanted so much to be like him, to be above her father's insults but now, seeing his broken form she tried to hold back the tears for herself. If even Naruto couldn't stand all the torment then how could she?

"Next: Hyuuga, Hinata!" She could hear Mizuki-sensei call her name and she did her best to walk towards him as gracefully as possible but she was now a wreck of her previous self. Forming the seals for the bunshin technique, Hinata nervously uttered its name but she wasn't calm enough to control her chakra and only managed to produce a couple half decent clones. Even before she could utter an apology Mizuki absent mindedly stated "Alright, you pass. Next!"

Mizuki was extremely surprised by her performance but he couldn't fail the Hyuuga heir. That would be as good as signing his own death warrant with Hiashi-sama and he had too much to live for.

Hinata could only stare blankly at Mizuki-sensei. She hadn't really done that much better than Naruto and those bunshin wouldn't have lasted a moment longer if she had not been interrupted and yet she passed. Was she really that weak that everything had to be handed to her? Fighting back tears she ran out of the room the same way that Naruto had just moments prior as her classmates just stared on with confused faces. All she could think of was what her father was going to do that night after hearing how she had yet again disgraced the Hyuuga name; if she had failed that test her father probably would have given her the caged bird seal immediately and forced her into a life of servitude. For Hinata this was about to be one of the longest days in her life.

Time Skip No Jutsu

Naruto looked over the edge of the Hokage monument, staring at the setting sun as a light breeze ruffled his short golden hair. The boy sat above the stone head of the Yondaime as the once proud leader overlooked his village with determination, his expression immortalized. Anyone else would have been enjoying the beautiful sight but Naruto had his mind on other matters. 'What am I going to do,' the young boy puzzled as he tried to hide the tears that ran down his cheek in the folds of his orange jacket, 'being Hokage has always been my dream, now what am I going to do?' Before the boy could contemplate something stupid like seppuku (ritual suicide) he felt a gust of air that could only be attributed to someone landing noiselessly beside him.

"Hey." The voice broke Naruto out of his depressed state as his eyes gazed up at the face of his former sensei.

"Hey, Mizuki-sensei" grumbled Naruto in response, his mind on other things.

"Look Naruto, I know you're upset about failing the genin test but you know there is an alternate promotion path," Mizuki could only smile as he saw Naruto's face perk up. He had the boy's full attention and it was only a matter of time before he got what he wanted. It really was a test of his will to keep himself from pushing the demon-brat off the face of the cliff, he could probably get away with it too, but then he wouldn't be able to get the scroll of forbidden seals, at least without becoming a missing nin.

"Now before I tell you, you must promise me that you won't tell any other students, I really shouldn't be telling you this, in fact Iruka-san tried to convince me otherwise", Mizuki noticed the angry glare that flashed across the boys face at the mention of his sensei, 'This boy is just too easy to manipulate, but then again so is anyone when they become emotional.' "I however believe that you have what it takes to become a genin and so I propose you do the 'alternate' test, what do you say?"

Naruto was only too eager to grasp at the seemingly perfect opportunity that had presented itself 'YES, I can still realize my dream' thought the exuberant lad as he hopped up and down filled with the energy that he had lost only moments ago. He quickly nodded his head as a signal for his teacher to continue.

"You see there is an alternate graduating path, a practical test if you will. All you have to do is sneak past or incapacitate a couple of Chuunin guards, get into the sealed Archives, get past the traps, and return a certain scroll. From that scroll you have to perform a certain technique for me called the shiiru wo funsai seishin, it may appear difficult but all you have to do is properly inscribe the seal somewhere and channel chakra into it, piece of cake. Oh and by the way, you have exactly three hours to do this as of now, meet me at training ground fourteen to demonstrate the technique and then I will judge whether you pass or fail. Remember: this is a real world simulation; the guards have the right to attack with potentially lethal strikes or even call for backup. Well, what are you waiting for? Begin!"

At this the blonde nodded his head and sped off into the setting sun, eager to prove to everyone that he was indeed worthy of becoming a ninja. Mizuki looked on from his present vantage point watching the kid jump from rooftop to rooftop with a small smile on his face. That smile slowly grew into an evil grin and he couldn't stop himself from releasing a cackle into the night. The boy would steal the scroll for him and then he will kill himself and the bastard of a fox inside of him. That was specifically why he had instructed the boy to use the shiiru wo funsai suru seishin or as it was more commonly called the soul shattering seal. Prominent clans originally used it as a rather brutal method of execution. The seal used the user's chakra to literally rip their soul apart, without their soul, the chakra pathways inside the body collapsed and so would the cells inside the body that had become dependent on chakra. This method caused rapid deterioration of any bloodline or chakra enhanced characteristics of an entity making it impossible for spies to exhume corpses and learn about their secrets.

Eventually the Shodai Hokage abolished the seal and the only record of its existence was placed inside the scroll of seals. Although Mizuki was an evil bastard, he was also smart, and he didn't want to risk the fox escaping once the vessel was killed so he had taken extra precautions. Mizuki would get his revenge for what the demon did to him long ago.

Flashback no Jutsu

"Hey kid you have to get going it's almost here!" a Konoha chuunin yelled at a young Mizuki who was standing mouth agape starring ahead into a fiery hell hole. All he could see was fire, everywhere, engulfing everything and in the midst of those flames stood a great beast, no not a beast, a demon. The demon snarled as a rain of shuriken, kunai, senbon and all manners of projectiles struck it but none of them were able to even penetrate the beasts thick red fur. The beast roared sending a chill down the spines of those around to hear it, its blood lust almost palpable in the hot air. The demon wielding its tails like great clubs struck the ground with great force where the young boy could only assume the other ninja were. The most disturbing thing about the demon wasn't the evil chakra it emanated, nor its long canines but rather its eyes. Its eyes reflected nothing but resentment, they flickered with promises of death and the young boy stood idly by mesmerized in their gaze. Only one thought went through the boys mind as he stared into the eyes of death incarnate – 'My parents are there…'

The last thing he could remember however was a pinching sensation at the base of his neck and strong arms grabbing him around the waist as everything disappeared into darkness.

Kai

"This is going to be so easy" muttered Naruto as he sped towards the Hokage tower. If there was one thing that the prankster was good it at it was sneaking. During the course of the year, once a week, all the children were given the day off to train with their parents and grow strong in their own clan's secret techniques. Students who weren't of any notable clans like Sakura and he got to spend their time in an alternate manner. Sakura decided to bury herself in books and in a way it paid off. Through her efforts she was firmly grounded in the basics, she could probably recite the entire ninja handbook by heart, but quoting every insufficiency that Naruto usually expressed sufficed. Naruto on the other hand had no interest in book smarts since he believed, like many of the other ninjas, "Ten minutes of combat experience is worth a weeks worth of mulling over dusty volumes," or as some of the less eloquent put it "the academy's a pile of crap."

Therefore the energetic blond wasted no time reading books; instead he played his own ninja games. These games were usually of two varieties: make the biggest spectacle possible and avoid capture for as long as possible or steal something harmless from a strong ninja and see how long he could last. These games weren't that easy since the Hokage enjoyed siccing the latest group of tracker nin on him, who were usually mid-chuunins, some of them even had nindogs. Naruto hated nindogs, or more correctly, Naruto hated nindogs that were out to get him.

To help overcome the odds the blonde had developed some very interesting variations of the academy jutsus. He developed the orioke no futsu, the esechi no jutsu, and his personal favourite, the nin-mane bunshin no jutsu. The Orioke no Jutsu (sexy technique) was a variation of the henge in which he creates the illusion that he was is a completely naked female version of himself (apart from some tastefully placed smoke). This technique worked surprisingly well against most male shinobi who were immediately knocked out from the backlash of the torrent of blood that would come sprouting out of their noses. Using it around a kunoichi however would quickly send him into a world of pain.

The esechi no jutsu (false earth technique) was a subtle genjutsu that stretched the scene around the observer so it appeared that things were farther away or closer than they actually were. The subtlety of the jutsu made it difficult to detect since it didn't produce a clash between the senses and it became especially powerful when being chased. It became even more powerful when being chased near the edge of a cliff. Naruto couldn't help but chuckle at the memory of a group of chuunin who ran off the Hokage monument only to be saved, ironically, by the nose of the effigy of the fourth Hokage. He truly was a great man, not even his death stopped him from saving the lives of his villagers, no matter how stupid or perverted they may be. The technique could also be used to make doors look like they were in front of someone while they were in fact a meter to the left. This resulted in a number of unfortunate chuunins to running into walls while pursuing the golden haired delinquent.

The final and possibly most powerful jutsu was the nin-mane bunshin no jutsu (human mimic clone technique). This handy technique created a bunshin AROUND a person so that, to the casual observer, that person was Naruto. That bunshin would then mimic all the movements of the person so that appeared that the clone was 'solid'. If used on a group of pursuers this caused immediate discord and if he was lucky, one would knock the other unconscious before they were given a chance to speak. When most of the ninja realized that when they saw the jutsu casted on them they should speak to inform their comrades that they were friendly, Naruto followed suit and mimicked their voice so it seemed like their were two of the same person. Naruto may not have been very smart but he was tricky, quick witted, and had a very strong imagination, and perhaps just a touch of fox-like cunning (mwuahahahah Kyubbi reference :P).

Flashback no Jutsu

"Get back here you little brat!" The chuunin was a rookie and hadn't heard about the menace the blonde bundle of energy was. He was given the choice between spending the day on guard duty, or spending the day catching Naruto. 'Catching a school kid, this will only take ten minutes and then I'll have the rest of the day to myself, hehehe, hello Icha Icha Paradise…' Unfortunately he never bothered to go deeper into the mission briefing thinking that he'd be dealing with some snot nosed arrogant little brat. Unfortunately he was dealing with a snot nosed arrogant little brat that made terrorizing Konoha a full time profession.

Sending the new recruits after Naruto had become a hazing ritual of sorts. If they were able to find Naruto within one hour and then catch him within half then they were inducted into Konoha's capture and retrieval unit. If they failed then they had to suffer the scorn of their superior, Karuido Inuzuka, and his hunting pack and that was never a pleasant experience. This was the main reason that the only punishment that Naruto ever received was rectifying any damage that he had caused, and sometimes community service, depending on what kind of mood the Hokage was in at the time.

The chuunin's other team-mates knew the routine having been forced to endure it themselves and so decided to hang back to see how he would handle it. The crime in question this time was vandalizing the Hokage monument. The first hokage now sported bubblegum pink hair, green eyes, and a red bandana, providing him an uncanny resemblance to Sakura. The second fared no better having his helmet turned into a pair of headphones and receiving a psychedelic hair style. The third was the least desecrated since it seemed like Naruto decide to do him last from lack of inspiration, and ran out of paint. The result was the same stone head with a bunch of different coloured hearts. Just to make sure that everyone knew who did it (not like it wasn't obvious enough), Naruto had decorated the yondaime in his likeness complete with the blonde hair, blue eyes, cheesy grin and whiskers.

It didn't take the group a long time to find Naruto since he was currently laughing like a maniac in between slurps of ramen over at Ichiraku's ramen stand. Unfortunately the boy was quickly alerted to their presence due to the massive amount of killer intent the rookie was giving off. This made the boy even happier. Although he normally showed some fear of his aggressors, a hunter nin should never expose himself so easily by his emotions alone so this one was definitely new to the game, it was time to have some fun. 'Excellent, fresh meat, I wonder what I'm going to-' But the boy was cut off by the lunge his pursuer just made. The boy however quickly sidestepped and the chuunin slid along the counter slamming into a number of piled up bowls that luckily didn't break. Naruto however used this time to make a quick get away and started making the seals needed for his nin-mane bunshin technique. After the smoke dispersed all that remained were two dishevelled looking Narutos: one being the real one and the other being the chuunin. The first Naruto quickly used this distraction to knee his double in the gut, shooting him into the fence where he disappeared in a pop to reveal the snarling chuunin from before.

"What the hell, a boy can't hit that hard" commented one of the shocked veterans.

"Yeah, he must be using _its _power, we have to knock him out and present him to the Hokage at once."

Running through seals faster than any of the bystanders could see the two chuunin guards quickly used kage shibari no jutsu to snare Naruto before he could even run and subsequently applied a series of rapid prods to a series of pressure points knocking out their captive for at least one hour. One of the hunters stepped forward and strapped their fallen teammate to their back while the other tied up their captive with strong ninja wire and rushed with all haste to the Hokage Tower.

The two shinobi barged into the room carrying their charges on their backs ignoring the odd looks that preceded them "Hokage-sama, the unthinkable has happened, the jinchuriki kid has-" they were cut off by an enraged snarl from the Hokage.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!? Why the hell did you come barging in here carrying a stump, and what has possibly possessed you to hog tie your team mate!?"

Finally dropping their charges they realized that instead of an injured team mate and a hog tied brat they had their hog tied partner and a large log. Not wishing to incur the wrath of the most powerful ninja in the village the three quickly rushed out of the room hoping to find the kid before anyone else found out about their little misadventure. When the three nins finally left the room the Sandaime unable to hold his stern expression for much longer burst into a fit of guffawing. He had been watching the entire event from his special crystal ball and had seen all that had happened.

It wasn't Naruto that had hit the chuunin so hard but really the other way around. When the boy hit the fence he used the opportunity to henge into the chuunin disguising the telltale henge smoke as the smoke created by a dispelled bunshin. When the other two chuunin were distracted taking down their own partner Naruto had taken the opportunity to use kawarimi and replace himself with a large log in the guise of their partner. The one thing that didn't make sense was how the bunshin wasn't dispelled from the hits it received and how the kawarimi was able to last that long since it needed chakra to maintain and it could only get chakra if the user was in the immediate vicinity meaning that- _CRASH_

"Hey ero-jiji!!" exclaimed a blonde boy who rose up from a pile of broken ceiling tiles and dusted himself off, "How're you doing?"

"Naruto! For the last time stop calling me that! It's Hokage-sama to you and what do you think you're doing attacking a chuunin like that?"

"But jiji, I never attacked them, in fact they attacked me! A defenceless little boy! It's not my fault…" Naruto stared at Sarutobi, his hands behind his back, with the biggest and bluest puppy dog eyes he could muster. Sarutobi however was hokage for a reason, and not even the cutest puppy dog eyes could stop him from doing his job.

"Naruto, you're actions are still inexcusable, you are hereby ordered to clean the monument and fix my ceiling!" exclaimed the old man, he really was getting to old for this. However instead of hearing a plea or protest he could only hear a chuckle and the previously cute puppy-dog face had turned into a foxy grin.

"Shinobi rule number 10 old man: keep your opponents hands in sight – Orioke no Jutsu!" The boy had been forming the hand seals behind his back.

Where once kneeled Naruto now stood a voluptuous blonde, her hair in pigtails, and a coy smile plastered on her face. If the girl knew that she was standing in front of the old man completely naked, she didn't show it.

"But hokage-sama," cooed the girl "maybe there's some way I can make this all up to you? Hm?" She gave a cute inquisitive moan; it was the final nail in the old man's coffin.

"Hehe, see you later ero-jiji!" exclaimed the now thankfully _male_ blonde as he gave a salute to the pale, nose-bleeding corpse of the most respected man in the village and jumped out the window.

'Yep, I'm really getting to old for this' were the old man's final thoughts as he drifted off into rather explicit dreams.

Kai

The young boy stared at the chuunin guards posted outside of the Hokage tower's back entrance. The guards paced back and forth muttering about how they would rather be at home or getting drunk rather than guarding some artefacts that no one had ever bothered to steal, especially during peacetime. 'This is going to be especially easy; those bakas aren't going to know what hit them.' The young ninja-to-be formed the proper seals and quietly muttered under his breath "erechi no jutsu" and the guards were trapped in his illusion. 'Alright, I've got them where I want them; all I have to do is slowly shift the location of the entrance. Since there aren't any visible landmarks I could probably stand to move the entrance over about three meters.'

Using the false earth technique the boy shifted the image of the door centimetre by centimetre so that the guards wouldn't notice. Now that the guards were guarding a brick wall the boy was able to quietly scale up one side of the wall and repel down the other using some ninja rope. He muttered "Kai" to set off a weak explosive tag over to the left of the guards to get their attention and to cover the soft thump he made as his sandals hit dirt. Using the distraction he quickly snuck into the building and released his illusion when the guards left to investigate the noise. 'Too easy… now all I have to do is make it to the end of this corridor, get the scroll and get out.'

Naruto, lost in his confident daze failed to notice a discoloured stone and the colour left his face when he realized that the stone sank a bit when he stepped on it. "Kuso, a trap" exclaimed the boy as he braced himself with kunai at the ready expecting a rain of senbon, a collapsing and/or spiked ceiling, or a clichéd yet entirely effective giant boulder to come hurdling towards him but nothing came…

Back in the Hokage's office

"What do you mean that maintenance work on the building was skipped this month!" exclaimed a furious old man as glared daggers at his new office assistant.

"I-I'm sorry y-your Excellency, b-but the forms to authorize m-maintenance work you gave us didn't have your signature, in fact they were just soaked in b-blood… "

Remembering his previous encounter with Naruto the old man could do nothing but sigh and stroke his grizzled white beard. 'I'm really, really getting too old for this.'

15 meters directly bellow them

"Well that was close, looks like the old pervert forgot to reset the traps," the thought of some unlucky chuunin guard running away from a giant boulder he had accidentally triggered brought a smile to his face. Finally after about a 10 minute walk during which the boy was careful not to trigger anything else lest there be some defences still working, he found himself in an antechamber. The boy could only stare wide eyed at the artefacts that covered the walls. The walls were covered in a dazzling array of ridges that formed what looked like concentric circles and a large amount of Kanji. Ignoring all the other trinkets the boy set his sights upon the great scroll that stood in the center of the room on an aged pedestal; it was about the length of his arm, the diameter of his head and looked like it weighed about 20 pounds. Only after lifting the scroll and securing it to his back did the boy realize his folly. Light began to emanate from the pedestal, dancing along the ridges on the floor and shooting up to the ceiling where they spread out along the concentric circles as the ring of Kanji around them began to glow and to his horror rotate. The boy knew all too well what this was: a seal. And judging by the fact that the seal took up the entire damned room it was a pretty dangerous seal.

"I don't even want to know what that thing does" exclaimed the boy as his instincts took control and he belted out of the room and along the corridor no longer bothering to avoid anything suspicious, as far as he was concerned freaky glowing seal trumps flying barrage of kunai.

'I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die' repeated a voice inside the blonde's head as his mad dash triggered trap after trap.

Meanwhile the guards had heard the commotion and peered into the entrance only to see a small shadow with a bundle secured on its back being closely followed by what seemed to be a great wall of light. Screaming and rolling out of the way two guards barely caught sight of the shadow as it back flipped onto a ledge above the entrance as the bright light swept past. When the guards finally recovered they no longer saw the shadow but what they did see unnerved them to no end: a cylinder 100 meters long and 2 meters in diameter was gouged out of the land as if the Kamis themselves had taken a giant cookie cutter and cut a section out as if it was mere clay. Staring at the perfectly smooth ridge carved into the soil in front of them it didn't even hit them that they should be sounding the alarm.

Meanwhile the Hokage felt the sudden bolt of energy recognizing it immediately as hakai-kei, one of the most powerful trap seals in existence – the light of destruction. Thinking quickly Saratobi sent a pulse of chakra into an alarm seal on his desk, immediately an elite battalion of anbu appeared around his desk in a cloud of smoke, they too had felt the disturbance.

"Hokage-sama?"

"The scroll of sealing has been stolen, I am certain that the perpetrator escaped the blast if they had the audacity to steal the scroll in the first place. Fan out and find the thief before he leaves the village, if you can, bring him back alive."

"Ossu!" all but one of the Anbu saluted and disappeared in a flurry of leaves.

"You, Captain, get the two guards on duty and get them over to interrogation immediately, it is more then likely that they saw something or, Kami forbid, they were in on it."

Training ground Juushi (14)

Mizuki stood atop a tree marvelling at his handiwork, he was especially surprised that the boy had escaped the blast but then again it wouldn't have been too big of a loss. The scroll of sealing no doubt had a special seal on it to protect it from the blast, if worst came to worst Mizuki would have had to go down there himself and get the scroll amidst Naruto's ashes. The problem was that the scroll could only be opened by someone with no intent to steal it; it was a rather complex seal placed by the seal master himself, Yondaime, and would be very difficult to remove without damaging the document, that was what the demon brat was for, and speaking of the devil…

"Mizuki-sensei, I did it! I got the scroll!" exclaimed the weary yet jubilant boy.

"Very good Naruto, you have passed this section. I have set out a calligraphy brush and some ink over on that flat rock, which is where I expect you to perform the seal. It is too large a seal to draw out on a scroll, much like the seal you saw earlier." Mizuki couldn't help but grin as the boy unravelled the scroll of sealing until he found the section he was looking for and his mouth stood agape, it was about three times as complex as any seal he had previously preformed.

Although the art of sealing is not for everyone, making seals and more importantly calligraphy were both taught at the academy. Naruto found he was quite proficient with the only seal that the class had been taught – the item seal. The item seal was a very simple seal. The user draws out the seal, places the item that is too be sealed on top, and then channels chakra into the seal, the item is then turned into chakra and stored inside the seal. Nothing else was required. More complex seals required advanced chakra manipulation as well as special dyes for the seal to be written with.

Grabbing a calligraphy brush, Naruto set about the arduous task of drawing out the four ring seal, trying to keep his kanji legible and his circles as perfect as possible, any mistake could literally blow up in his face. After completing the seal the boy scraped his thumb against his sharper than average canine and drew the blood across the seal while channelling in as much chakra as he could as the instructions dictated.

Mizuki watched on from the relative safety of a nearby tree, he watched in morbid fascination as each well drawn ring began to grow as did the rings of kanji. Each ring then began to spin in the opposite direction to the ones around it until Naruto was surrounded by 4 alternately spinning rings of light. The ecstasy on his face coming from successfully completing the jutsu soon turned to agonizing pain as he felt like he was being ripped apart from the inside out. After a bright red flash of light, all that remained was a steaming bundle of bright orange clothes now dull with ash.

The traitor couldn't help but smile inwardly to himself, he had succeeded.

_Cliff hanger no jutsu_

**Closing Notes:**

I know, I'm a jackass. To answer your first question, Naruto is alive, this woudn't be a Naruto fic if he was dead and I don't plan on having Hinata using Kuchiyose: edo tensei to make him her love slave. I left a couple of clues as to what you can expect from later chapters. If any of you have read Kyuubi's Gou, that is _along the lines _of what you are going to expect. Also I hope you don't like Sakura too much because I probably won't make her a majour part of the story. I chose Ino because she is very undeveloped in the canon version so I have a lot to work with, same with Hinata. If I had gone with Sasuke and Sakura then you would have some crappy regurgitated avenger/medic nin but if enough people want shallow regurgitated characters then I would be happy to comply… by sending you hate mail, that or appending "believe it!" to everything the blonde says.

I don't particularly care about how many reviews I get. As long as I know that at least some people are reading I'll keep writing for them. If you have a problem with how my characters act or the way I write then tell me and if possible I will try to rectify my deficiencies. In case you noticed I really don't write dialog but there should be more as the story progresses. Considering how much dialog there was in the first episode I think I did a fare job. I even tried to brake up the angstyness with a funny scene.

Abayo.

p.s. feel free to point out any glaring problems with my Japanese or suggest a better translator. I'm currently using animelab.

**Jutsus and Japanese**

_Bunshin no Jutsu_ – although it is labelled as a ninjutsu in the show I believe that it should a genjutsu. Literally meaning 'offshoot' or 'ones other self', the technique creates an illusion in the likeness of the caster to confuse the opponent. The illusions don't have mass and cannot physically affect anything in any way.

_Time Skip no Jutsu – _used mostly by authors who don't want to get into frivolous details that won't advance the main story.

_Flash back no Jutsu _– used to explain something that has already happened. Keeping every event in the story in chronological order not only ruins the suspense but also the general flow. This technique can be used to give more insight into a new character or explain a jutsu that the reader wasn't told of at the time. This technique although unnamed is very popular with villains, both in my story and in the anime. (Demonstrated especially well by Zabuza, Sasuke also gained full mastery of this technique at the valley of the end)

_Kai – _Literally means release, the user sends a shock their chakra coils in order to restore themselves to their proper senses and dispel any illusion (or flashback). It can also be used to end lasting techniques, detonate explosive tags or unleash things from seals. High level genjutsu techniques can't always be released that easily. The technique mostly relies on the caster's will and intelligence.

_Henge no Jutsu – _creates an illusion that makes the caster looks like another

_Kage Shibari no Jutsu – _a technique that snares their target inside their shadow and makes them unable to move. The range of this jutsu is proportional to the surface area of the shadows surrounding the user. The closer the user is to the target the stronger the hold is although a strong willed person could still overpower it. The successful completion of this jutsu on a weakened target usually wins the battle.

_Kawarimi no Jutsu – _The replacement technique. The user (usually during a distraction) uses chakra enhanced speed to quickly escape while leaving behind an object in the guise of the user. Any force applied to the henged object will revert to its original form although a more powerful variant of the jutsu allows the user to maintain the illusion for a short amount of time along with the expected gore in order to confuse or delay their enemy.

_Icha Icha Paradise – _A perverted novel by the famed sannin Jiraiya.

The three levels of ninja are _Genin_, _Chunnin_ and _Jounin_ in that order. The kage, or hokage in the case of the leaf, is the commander and leader of the village. _Hokage_ can be directly translated to 'shadows moving in firelight'.

Sandaime – third hokage,

Yondaime – fourth hokage.

Kuso – shit


End file.
